The showery weather is continuing which is ensuring that the floods are well topped up though I get the feeling that this is making it less attractive for the smaller waders such as Little Ringed Plover which like a nice well-defined shoreline. As far as recent bird sightings are concerned the BLACK-TAILED GODWIT continues to look very much at home on the floods and the two SHELDUCK are still about though I haven't seen any Oystercatchers for a few days now. A LITTLE EGRET has been fishing on the floods over the last few days as well as a Grey Heron. Today there were four COMMON SANDPIPERS along the North Shore and a very late pair of PINTAIL. Two or three COMMON TERN have been seen regular on the floods though despite looking very much at home, they won't breed here as there's no where suitable for them - they may end up over the hill at Farmoor instead.
The highlight of the last couple of days on the floods has been a very smart drake
GARGANEY that has been dabbling away happily along the West Shore - the
flooded grass looks perfect for this species at present.
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| Drake Garganey are such smart looking ducks! |
Gareth Blockely visited Port Meadow today in the morning and managed to hear a CUCKOO in Burgess Field - a very welcome year tick which I was fearing we wouldn't get as this species has been in steep decline nationally in recent years. Talking of missing year ticks I've still not managed either Grasshopper or Sedge Warbler and we're still yet to record some common waders such as Ruff, Green Sandpiper and Greenshank. In fact it's been a remarkably poor spring passage for waders so far - let's hope that it improves over the next couple of weeks.
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